Beyond our fantasy football content, be sure to check out our award-winning slate of Fantasy Football Tools as you prepare for your draft this season. From our free mock Draft Simulator – which allows you to mock draft against realistic opponents – to our Draft Assistant – which optimizes your picks with expert advice – we’ve got you covered this fantasy football draft season.

If you have ever sat down and attempted to create fantasy rankings, you may have realized it can be an infuriating process. The decisions between players can feel arbitrary and attempting to blend position groups is a confusing proposition. Even when you use a trusted source for ranks during drafts, it can be difficult to understand how to best maximize this resource for roster construction. It is not always optimal to take the best player available when considering the scarcity of a position and needs for your roster.

Check out our Draft Kit for printable cheat sheets & sleeper picks

 So what is the alternative? 

Instead of focusing solely on rankings, creating tiers can offer flexibility and an understanding of where to target value in a draft. What are tiers? Tiers are breaks, or separation, between groups of players that are projected to have a similar level of production or value. Let’s take the top of the draft as an example. There is a consensus top tier of Saquon Barkley, Alvin Kamara, Christian McCaffery, and Ezekiel Elliot (if he shows up for camp before your draft). A case could be made for each of these players being drafted first overall and each of them is clearly better options than players below them in rankings. 

While it is easy to separate elite running back talent, tiers become more nuanced as you move down the rankings to less productive players. The key is to distinguish groups of players that you find to be relatively interchangeable. 

This is helpful because, at a basic level, tiers help you to track the scarcity of commodities as they are “purchased” during the draft. A tier implies that a group of players have similar value, but their average draft position indicates different costs. If you had a choice of buying two similar products, would you choose the more expensive version? Of course not. 

So if Player X is in the same tier as Player Y, but Player X is being drafted 15 spots earlier, it is advantageous to pass on him and wait for Player Y. This is truer if there are numerous players in a tier. If you notice ten players remain in a WR tier, then it is worth targeting a different position with less available options since those players are less likely to be available at your next pick. 

There is no position better representing this concept than QB. The position has a particularly large mid-tier that includes 12-15 players this season. Because of this, it is recommended you wait as long as possible to select a QB if you choose to not have a top option. There is no value in selecting a QB in Round 8 when a player with similar projected points will be available in Round 12.

I rely heavily on tiers during my drafts to employ a values-based approach. This is why I tend to prefer being on the turn of the draft (either a top three or bottom three selection). During my first of the two selections on the turn, I can examine the number of players available in tiers and the needs of the teams between my picks. This offers the opportunity to strategize and make an educated guess of what players are most likely to be available for my next selection. 

So we have established the value of using tiers, how do we create them?

The most basic option is to trust the experts. FantasyPros’ expert consensus rankings places players in tiers based on both their positional and overall rankings to offer you an edge on draft day. But if you’re interested in creating your own, here are a few options: 

Personal Preference

The first method is not exactly scientific. Go down a rankings list and mark a tier when you notice a drop off in your comfort level of selecting a group of players. For example, let’s use FantasyPros’ wide receiver rankings. If you are moving down this list and you decide that Robert Woods, Kenny Golladay, and Chris Godwin are much more reliable options than Tyler Lockett or Cooper Kupp, mark a tier between these players. 

While this isn’t supported by data or analytics, it is informative for how you would like to approach your draft and the range of players you are excited about targeting. This exercise will give you a feel for how a draft may unfold and what rounds might cause the most uncertainty in your options. Be sure to also use the mock draft simulator, since there is no better way to clarify which player you prefer than by learning who you will pick when you’re on the clock. 

Average Consensus Rankings

Another method is to take advantage of the average ranking positions among experts. If you examine the difference in these numbers, you will start to notice natural separation occurs between groups of players. Let’s use FantasyPros’ tight end rankings as an example: 

Take a look at the far-right column of the chart. These are the average rankings among a consensus of experts in the industry. It tells us that experts have Hunter Henry and Evan Engram as nearly interchangeable, and the same for Jared Cook and David Njoku. But there is a gap between these two pairings. Despite being ranked sixth and seventh, there is over a three-point difference in the average. This occurs when there is more variability among where rankers have the players, and as a group, they consider a separation in the value of these players. This creates a natural tier break.

There are a couple of merits for this approach. One is that it is quick and convenient, simply requiring a scan of the average rankings among the consensus. The other is the power of groups. A research study once had a large number of people guess how many beans were in a huge jar. The more guesses they received, the more accurate the average was to the actual number of beans. This is why the consensus rankings are such an asset and can be a reliable foundation for identifying accurate tiers. 

Projections 

The process for using projections can be a bit more labor-intensive and is potentially less reliable. End-of-season fantasy points rarely mirror what is projected in pre-season because football is usually unpredictable.  But projections can still capture players’ expected opportunity and workload, which can help for knowing when to target them in fantasy drafts.

 The first step will be to create an excel dataset of players and their projected fantasy points. Then you generate an excel chart of these two variables, which will look similar to this chart:

Tiers are identified in this chart by noting a drop off between player expected points. One clear separation here is between James White and Kenyan Drake, determined by the steep decline. As you go through rankings of each position, mark these tier breaks in your rankings to delineate groups.

Summary

There are many different strategies to approach your draft. Tiers are not a strategy, but rather a tool that will help you succeed in whichever one you choose. They provide guidance on how to classify groups of players and compare positions when you are on the clock. I encourage you to take advantage of FantasyPros’ expert consensus tiers and to play around with creating your own. It can offer insight into how you value certain players and will help you familiarize yourself with the fantasy landscape heading into 2019.

Mock draft vs. experts with our free Draft Simulator

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | TuneIn | RSS

Thomas Burroughs is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Thomas, follow him @FF_TomB.